


endgame

by avatarkadaj



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Trailer, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tony Stark has PTSD, i'm all up in my feelings sue me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-25 22:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18172061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avatarkadaj/pseuds/avatarkadaj
Summary: It led to this. He knew it would. There was no other outcome but this and he had known it for years. This was it, the endgame.  ENDGAME SPECULATION, SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST ENDGAME TRAILER.





	endgame

It led to this. He knew it would. There was no other outcome but this and he had known it for years. 

This was it, the endgame. 

Ever since Manhattan, and the Chitauri, he had known this was the way it was going to be. That it would never stop until it did, and Earth didn’t stand a chance. He had hoped against it, of course; that maybe they would make it out, that maybe the horror would stop, that maybe they would have the right weapons and the right plans and the right people. But deep down, Tony knew this was the way it would all go down. Things would escalate; bigger, badder villains, worse enemies from the worlds beyond. The fight always was narrow, they scrape by, they heal, they fight again. They always would. 

\----

The first time he suffocated in space, it was different. 

He made the sacrifice play against the assumptions of others, he made the difficult call. He carried the nuke through the wormhole into the vacuum of space to save New York, to decimate the Chitauri. He released it, floating away, releasing himself.

He felt the crushing pressure, the light of the suit flickering in his helmet. It was fast, faster than he thought it would be. Minutes, seconds maybe, is how long he lasted as he struggled to breathe. He remembered Pepper’s voice, pleading him to stay, begging him not to do it. His back to the world as he slowly fell, his eyes slowly closing as he replayed the things in the head that brought him peace; the sound of Pepper’s voice, the curve of her smile. He was afraid; he didn’t want to die, but it was okay. He knew it would be. In the darkness, he thought he heard a ghost of a man who once made the sacrifice play for him. He welcomed the voice, and he was ready now.

The light of the arc reactor went out, the light of the eye slits went out, and he fell.

\---

When he made Ultron, Tony had understood then before everyone else had. They said he was going too far, they said he was trying to play God. But he wasn’t; he knew he wasn’t god and that was why he had to do this. He had to create this so that they could stop fighting, to put down their arms and give it a rest. It was because he knew he was just man, a man with only so much time and energy and ability, that something else would have to fight the battles. He only wanted to help. 

Ultron had gone horribly wrong; a program released too soon, a program corrupted by the very thing it was designed to fight. In his heart he knew it then, that they didn’t stand a chance, then, did they? No one could fight the battle besides them and one day it wouldn’t be enough. 

What was a ragtag team of human beings who happened to be special against the horrors of space and aliens and magic, anyway?   
\---  
Months after Manhattan, in a diner, he sat with Rhodey. Rhodey could read him like a book, better than even Pepper, who was damn good herself. If Pepper was catching on that he was doing poorly, well, Rhodey already had the line of questioning ready before Tony had even admitted to himself the damage corroding under his skin. 

“Have you been sleeping?” Rhodey asked. His question cut deep because they both knew he hadn’t been, not since Manhattan—and because Rhodey’s voice was tired because he knew this conversation well, he has already walked through in his head dozens of time before the words leave his mouth. 

“You know Einstein only slept three hours a year,” Tony quipped back. The statistic was fake, he was ninety percent certain, but it wasn’t about right or wrong—it was about deflection, that was the name of the game. 

But he wasn’t Einstein, they both knew the next line in their heads. He was just a traumatized man who had fought too much but couldn’t give up, not yet, he didn’t know how. But he couldn’t say how bad he was feeling, he couldn’t admit to himself, let alone Rhodey. The words couldn’t come out because if they did, he knew it would never stop. 

No, he didn’t sleep because when he did, he was afraid, he was so afraid and the fear was too much to bear. The nightmares returned again and again and if he dared to close his eyes the darkness was too much--like space, vast and empty and suffocating and he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to be afraid anymore.

A child came up and asked for an autograph and for a moment Tony was grateful because there is the light again. Someone thought he was a hero, someone thought he can’t be hurt or afraid and it’s good as a distraction from the truth. He was used to playing the hero, the knight in iron armor. He is not Tony right now, he is Iron Man, he is superhuman.

Except he’s not, he is just human and Iron Man and Tony are the same entity, the same heart, and suddenly, he scribbled words of “help me” as the child whispered about the worm hole and he’s there again in the emptiness of space and he was suffocating. 

He would always be suffocating.  
\---

He remembered Yinsen in his last moments before the black out in the worm hole. He never told anyone about it, it was his secret to keep. 

It took a few days before he thought about Yinsen as he hovered in the hunk of a pod, floating aimlessly in space. Starvation and dehydration does that to the mind, brings back the ghosts. He sees him there, both now and then, two flickering images. He sees him standing sometimes when he’s sitting on the floor, a silent ghost perpetually working. Bust sometimes Yinsen was laying there, bleeding and broken, whispering about his family, and what about your family, Tony? Are you going to see them on the other side? 

He cries, he cries and he cries. It’s more of dry sobs by the time it comes out, when he works past the horror and the madness. He doesn’t have the tears to cry but he can’t bear it anymore. What was the point, Yinsen, of it all? Why did you die all those years ago, so we could end up here, hopeless, lost? Did you know that this would be the end?

Yinsen doesn’t offer the answer and either way, it would be a horrible reality to face. 

Tony stops crying as he slumps beside Yinsen, their staggered breath matching. Yinsen is dying now as he was then and Tony knows then; he’s dying too.


End file.
